


Turn the Clock Upside Down

by jibrailis



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, F/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:11:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jibrailis/pseuds/jibrailis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turn the Clock Upside Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sumeria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sumeria/gifts).



Something shifted in the air, like a breath puffing to wipe out the last remains of wicker-flame, and when Ahiru next blinked, she was no longer in Gold Crown Town. Or, at least, it was not Gold Crown Town as she knew it, with its quiltwork patched rooftops and bright, sunny streets. Nor were there animals waddling over cobblestone or rivers burbling their enigmatic secrets. No, Ahiru blinked and suddenly the air was dark and grey, full of smoke, and factories with chimneys like arms jutting up to the sky.

Then Ahiru cried out. She was in the sky too! On a hot air balloon of some sort — well, Ahiru supposed it was a hot air balloon. As a duck, she had never seen one in real life, of course, but had glimpsed them in storybook pictures. But there was the balloon, and there was the hot air. Check, check, check: a hot air balloon after all.

She was crouched in its basket, floating up in the sky. Ahiru flung herself to the edge, looked down, flailed, and threw herself backwards. The balloon rocked.

"Careful!" someone barked.

Ahiru knew that voice. Her throat warbled in relief. "Fakir!" she cried.

It was indeed Fakir, standing tall and stern on a balloon floating beside hers. He had a spyglass in one hand and a revolver in the next. Ahiru sputtered. "F-Fakir, something happened! I don't know what. One moment I was dancing and the next moment there was all — all this!" She waved a gangly arm to indicate their surroundings. "What happened?"

"Drosselmeyer's story changed." A body straightened up from beside Fakir. It was Autor. "It seems he has decided to pursue cross-genre fiction, all within the same work. A story within a story."

"What story is this?" Ahiru wondered. A sound like cannon fire rocketed across the sky, and she saw an entire army of balloons sweeping towards them. 

"Watch out!" Fakir said. "Enemies incoming! Head due east!" He tugged on a silver rope and his balloon started moving faster.

"I don't know how!" Ahiru called out after him, but Fakir turned around and glared.

"Yes, you do. In this story, you know exactly how. Now do it, Ahiru!"

She gulped and rushed to obey. Strangely enough, Fakir was right. Even though Ahiru's brain was in feathered turmoil, her body knew how to react. She watched in amazement as her arms moved of their own volition, reaching up to tug the same rope she had in her craft that Fakir had on his. Then there was a roar of fire, a burst of heat, and she was moving, moving, moving to catch up with Fakir and Autor, who were floating eastward, Fakir calling out directions while Autor loaded their spitfire gun.

"Are we in a war?" Ahiru shouted over the sound of gunshots. 

"It seems so," Fakir replied calmly. "The Bautzen rebels are trying to gain independence from the imperial army." He looked down at his coat, on which there was an insignia of two red arrows. "It seems I am a captain of the rebels, and Autor is my first mate."

Autor snorted.

"Then what am I?" Ahiru wondered out loud. No longer a duck in this story, no longer Princess Tutu — what did that make her? She was wearing a heavy green peacoat and a jaunty hat, but that gave her no clues. She had no symbols on her the way Fakir and Autor did.

"We'll find out," Fakir promised her. He stared out at the reddened skyline, and there was a moment in which Ahiru observed that he looked quite handsome in his rebel's coat. But then she shook her head quickly. Silly, silly! No time to be thinking about that. Besides, this was _Fakir_.

 

* * *

 

They found a place to land, far from the fighting. When Ahiru tumbled out of her balloon, Rue came running.

"Rue!" Ahiru said happily. 

Rue was wearing the same coat as Fakir, but with three arrows instead of two. Ahiru did not know what that meant, not until Autor sketched a respectful bow. "Commander," he said, and Rue nodded at him briefly before turning to Fakir.

"Report," she said.

"The currents of Drosselmeyer's story have changed. Our previous narrative has been interspersed with--"

"Yes, yes, I am aware of all that," Rue said impatiently. "I mean with the war. What are our losses, Captain Fakir?"

Fakir looked somber. Ahiru fidgeted nervously. She did not know what a Bautzen rebel was, but it seemed that everyone else did and was adjusting to the new story quite well without her. She stole away and walked to the edge of the field, where there was a river that looked rather familiar. Then she realized. This was still Gold Crown Town! Except — what had happened to the charming buildings? To the school? They had all been replaced by factories and military bases. Ahiru's heart broke.

"Fakir," she said, tugging at his sleeve.

"What?" he snapped. But he looked down at her and his eyes did something funny, something soft and reluctant that made Ahiru's pulse speed up.

"This isn't a good story," Ahiru said. "We need to go back."

"I know," Fakir said. He reached to brush her hand from his coat, and in the process their knuckles knocked together. Fakir turned bright red. So did Ahiru. "Well, we'll make a plan," Fakir declared, clearing his throat. "So stop bothering me!"

Ahiru ducked her head. She smiled. "Okay," she said softly.

 

* * *

 

But it was to be more complicated than that. Drosselmeyer's stories were never easy.

"It's time for your checkup," Rue told her, leading her down a series of hallways in the rebel hideout. Fakir and Autor had gone to the mechanic's hall to repair their balloon.

"Checkup? What for?" Ahiru asked. "I don't see anybody else getting a checkup." She gazed this way and that, just in case she had missed them and there was an entire lineup for the doctor's office.

Rue stopped and gave her a sad, ironic look. "You didn't think you were human in this story, did you?"

 

* * *

 

"I'm a robot!" Ahiru wailed. She poked at her arms. They felt normal to her, but then Rue had shown her the schematics and had told her the story of how she had been made. "A robot!"

Fakir tapped his fingers against his thigh. He was sitting across from her in the mess hall, drinking his tea. "So?"

"I'm a robot duck!"

"You're not a duck in this story," Fakir said. 

Ahiru gasped in great, messy gulps. She felt like crying, but then she looked at Fakir and remembered that she had to be strong. Princess Tutu was strong, and she might not be Princess Tutu in this story anymore, but — no! She was always Princess Tutu. "All right," she said, pushing out her chin. "It was just a nasty shock. I can be a robot if I have to. I'll be the best robot in this compound, you'll see."

She jumped to her feet. "Quack!" She moved her arms in a slow, stiff fashion, just like a robot would. "Quaaaaack."

"Stop that," Fakir said, but he was hiding a smile. When she glanced at him, he scowled. "And sit back down. You're not just a robot, you're an essential operative in the war."

"I am?" Ahiru flounced back down, spreading her plain wool skirt over her knees. Her coat was warm, but not nearly as warm as she would have liked. She preferred feathers. "Oh yes! I remember Rue telling me about it. About how I used to be the robot companion of the great imperial commander Mytho —" She paused. "Mytho! He's our enemy in this story!"

"Our enemy, but also Rue's great childhood love," Fakir said dispassionately. "We have reason to believe he'll switch sides soon. He gave us you, after all. Maybe not intentionally, but he never came back for you when he lost you in a battle." He watched her face, as if he was worried she might be hurt, but Ahiru smiled.

"I'm sure Mytho had a good reason to leave me behind," she said.

Fakir frowned.

"What is it?" Ahiru said. "Are you sick?"

Autor walked by with a piece of rationed toast. "He's not sick, he's jealous," he said, and Fakir leaped to his feet and tried to punch Autor in the face. Autor ducked, and Ahiru watched them, confused.

Then the alarm rang. It was time for battle.

 

* * *

 

Battle!

Ahiru had never been in anything like battle, unless you counted the time she and another duck in the pond tussled for a scrap of bread. But this was nothing like that, not even in the stories she had read. The sky turned blue and red with the balloon-ships of the two opposing sides, and gunshots streaked through the space like golden streamers. Ahiru would watch in horror as a shot would hit a balloon and then it would deflate, spiraling downwards like a flower petal, fire bursting everywhere.

She would not let that happen to her ship. She was a robot, and she had been calibrated to pilot through the stormiest skies. She would make no mistakes.

Ahiru guided her balloon after Fakir's, keeping him safe. Though she hated to, she fired her cannon whenever it seemed someone was encroaching on Fakir. They made straight to the heart of the enemy lines, and she saw her robot-kin among the ranks of the imperial soldiers — they looked like robots more than she did, with their mechanical faces and jeweled eyes. She touched her own skin in shock, and was relieved to feel flesh. Even if it wasn't real. It was hers.

Where was Fakir going, she wondered. She followed him through the thick of the battle, dogging him determinedly until they were deep in enemy ranks. But no one was firing on them anymore. How come? Ahiru kept her hand on her spitfire gun, just in case.

Then there was a great blue balloon before them, a royal blue craft that looked decked in silk and moonlit dove grey. And in the centre of it, surrounded by automaton guards, with his feet spread apart and his arms behind his back, with a smile as kind as the day Ahiru first met him — was Mytho.

"Hello, air knights, you are right on time. Shall we navigate our peace?" he asked.

"That's why we're here," said Fakir.

 

* * *

 

The celebrations went on all night. Ale was poured through the halls of the celebrating rebels and the relieved imperial soldiers, and even though Autor came up and offered her a tankard, Ahiru shook her head. As an automaton, she had to be careful about protecting her insides. She looked longingly at a piece of sponge cake Rue had dug up from mysterious treasure hordes.

Fakir noticed. "I'm sorry," he said uncomfortably.

"It's all right," Ahiru sighed. "I'm not really hungry. I just _think_ I am." She brightened. "Look at this instead!" She jumped eight feet in the air and landed. "I have springs in my feet now."

"Can you dance?"

"I can try," Ahiru said. She looked out over at the crowds of rebels falling all over each other, laughing. She thought of something. "D-do you want to dance with me?"

"What?" Fakir blurted. "What? No."

"Oh," she said.

"Don't look like that!" Fakir commanded. "It's just a dance, not anything important and I — oh, _fine_."

"Hooray!" Ahiru cheered. She dragged him onto the dance floor where she proceeded to stomp all over his feet, but at least she had an excuse now. Automatons were even worse at dancing than ducks. Fahir frowned and scowled and criticized her every mistake, but as they swung around the floorboards in their boots and coats and their victory, Ahiru felt warm inside, like she had swallowed a piece of gold. 

"Do you think I'm better like this?" she asked. She clutched Fakir's hand, which was so very warm against her cold mechanical fingers. "Tell the truth. I can fly a hot air balloon and protect you in battle. All sorts of useful things I couldn't do before."

"I like you any way you are," Fakir said. "Duck or robot or girl or general nuisance." He would not meet her eyes.

"Really?"

"Ahiru—"

There were fireworks in the sky. Rue and Mytho were standing on a dais, looking stupidly happy together. Ahiru looked at them, and then looked back at Fakir's closed, anxious expression, and she felt just as happy as the prince and princess then; happy and brave. She leaned in and kissed Fakir's cheek.

He sputtered. But he did not let go.

 

* * *

 

"There are more stories than this one," Autor said when the skies were clear and blue again, and they could see the sun. "Drosselmeyer wove them into each other, one by one. Stories where you're pirates, stories where you're bakers, stories where you're animals in the forest or fish in the sea. All sorts. I can't promise they'll be happy, but they're there if you want them."

"They're our stories," Ahiru declared. "We want them." She looked at the door Autor was opening, and then at Fakir, who had a scarf wrapped around the lower portion of his face. She smiled and walked over, tugging the scarf down. Fakir turned maroon.

"Our stories," he repeated.

"Ready?" Ahiru asked, holding out her hand while wriggling her fingers. She took a deep breath and looked through the door into her futures.

"Ready," Fakir said, and he stepped through by her side.


End file.
